Last year we posted a presentation by Matti Ylönen looking at the politics of the international tax system. Now he has written us a guest blog, based on his paper co-authored with Teivo Teivainen, which was a co-winner of the Amartya Sen Prize in October 2015. Taxing corporations: the Politics … [Read more...]
Archives for 2016
Links Mar 7
The Billionaires’ Loophole The New Yorker EU competition chief warns Apple tax challenge will take a while BDlive Facebook looks set to pay more UK tax but it might not be as much as you think The Conversation By TJN senior adviser Prem Sikka. See also Facebook to award staff £280m in … [Read more...]
Switzerland’s financial secrecy brought under the human rights spotlight
Switzerland – arguably the world’s most important tax haven – may soon face scrutiny from the United Nations human rights system over its role in facilitating cross-border tax abuse. A coalition of civil society bodies has filed a submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination … [Read more...]
Google, Facebook and a gradual realignment to the post-BEPS landscape
Last week we wrote an article entitled Facebook ‘to pay more UK tax’. Let’s not get carried away, analysing an announcement by Facebook that it will restructure its operations so as to pay more tax in the UK. This follows earlier news (on which we also commented) that Google had reached a deal with … [Read more...]
Links Mar 4
AEoI as the new global standard: OECD Standard and EU Tax Cooperation, Keynote presentation at 2nd Turkish-German Biennial on International Tax Law, by TJN's Markus Meinzer, Istanbul Switzerland's Financial Secrecy Brought Under Human Rights Spotlight Center for Economic and Social … [Read more...]
US Fortune 500 cos hold $2.4trn offshore, dodging up to $695bn in tax
From Citizens for Tax Justice, a major new report: "A diverse array of companies are using offshore tax havens. . . All told, American Fortune 500 corporations are avoiding up to $695 billion in U.S. federal income taxes by holding $2.4 trillion of “permanently reinvested” profits offshore. In … [Read more...]
UN asks IMF, World Bank, to study illicit financial flows
Highlighting a powerful new(ish) study: the final report on illicit financial flows and human rights of the UN Independent Expert, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky. It’s well worth reading the whole thing, but here are some of the top lines and just a few of the many important recommendations: Illicit … [Read more...]
Facebook ‘to pay more UK tax’. Let’s not get carried away
Update: see Prem Sikka's article "Facebook looks set to pay more UK tax but it might not be as much as you think." The UK seems to be a bit of a canary in the mine on international corporation tax at the moment. This is because the British public is very, very exercised about these issues. The … [Read more...]
2016 Honesty Oscars: Stop the Bleeding song wins
The results of the 2016 Honesty Oscars are announced, and the winner is this song from the Stop the Bleeding campaign. Congratulations. … [Read more...]
Will the US Implement Country by Country Reporting?
The BEPS Monitoring Group, an expert body (backed by TJN and others) that works on international corporate tax issues, has published its comments on draft US Treasury Regulations on Country by Country Reporting (CbCR, for an explanation for newcomers, see here). Given the large number of … [Read more...]
The other four fifths of the corporate tax “incidence” question
We've done two blogs in the past week on the fraught question of the 'incidence' of the corporate income tax: that is, the question of who ultimately bears the burden for paying the tax. Is it the shareholders of the corporation that gets taxed? Is it the workers? Is it customers? Who is it? The … [Read more...]
US official on the influence of NGOs on taxing multinationals
Open Data for Tax Justice: Launch! #OD4TJ
Every year countries lose billions of dollars to tax avoidance, tax evasion and more generally to illicit financial flows. According to a recent IMF estimate around $700 billion of tax revenues is lost each year due to profit-shifting. In developing countries the loss is estimated to be around $200 … [Read more...]
Tax Justice Network vs. Tim Worstall: a debate on corporate tax
Tim Worstall, a British commentator who has launched a number of vitriolic and personalised public attacks on TJN and TJN staff members in the the past, has been in debate with TJN's Research Director, Alex Cobham, on the subject of corporate tax. (For a flavour of the extraordinary level of … [Read more...]
Links Mar 1
Withdrawal Symptoms: Why tax cuts aren't the best way to incentivise work The Equality Trust Global elite continues to make billions from rigged economic system, Forbes rich list shows Oxfam America How curious $3.3 million tax holiday to Shell, Total, Eni, is killing Nigerians – Report … [Read more...]
